Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [269]
Churchill was in mellow mood on the voyage home, but saw nothing in which to rejoice. The Warsaw Rising was all but over, despite belated and almost entirely unsuccessful arms drops to the defeated Home Army by 110 USAAF Flying Fortresses, which were grudgingly permitted to refuel in Russia. Eden had failed to persuade the Quebec conference to recognise the French National Committee as the nation’s government. Churchill told Colville that following the events of recent years, “my illusions about the French986 have been greatly corroded.” It was another month before de Gaulle’s obvious primacy among his countrymen obliged Washington to relent.
On September 28, back in London, Churchill reported to the Commons. With barely permissible nationalistic hyperbole, he described Normandy as “the greatest and most decisive single battle of the whole war.” He hailed Burma as “the campaign of Admiral Mountbatten,” a slight upon Gen. Bill Slim, the fine commander conducting the British offensive. He sought to make the best of defeat at Arnhem, seeing cause for celebration in an unaccustomed display of boldness by the Allies, even though the airborne assault had failed to secure a Rhine crossing. At the beginning of October, British troops began to move into southern Greece behind the retreating Germans. Churchill made a renewed plea to Roosevelt for the transfer of three U.S. divisions from France to Italy—and received the inevitable refusal.
It was against the background of repeated American snubs that Churchill now embarked upon his most controversial wartime journey. He determined to fly to Moscow for bilateral talks with Stalin. It is impossible to perceive this mission as other than a gesture of desperation. Having failed to enlist American support for any of the purposes which now mattered most to him, instead he sought to achieve them by going head-to-head with the Russians. Yet Stalin bargained only for advantage. Britain could offer nothing of interest to him. He well understood that the Americans had distanced themselves from Churchill’s nation. The prime minister’s behaviour can only be explained by acknowledging that he still nursed an exaggerated self-belief in his ability to reach personal understandings with Stalin. There was a pathos about his flight to Moscow in October 1944, well understood by those who worked most closely with the tired old prime minister.
He paused briefly in Italy, hearing from his commanders a tale of inadequate resources and sluggish progress. He saw Georgios Papandreou, and embarrassed the Greek prime minister by subjecting him to a long lecture on the virtues of monarchy. On October 9 he arrived in Moscow and was driven to Molotov’s dacha, his residence for the visit. At the first meeting with Stalin, he plunged immediately into a demand that Britain should have the principal voice in determining the future of Greece. He soon made it plain to the Soviet warlord that he spoke for himself, for Britain, and not for its transatlantic partner. Stalin observed silkily that Roosevelt “demanded too many rights for the United States of America, leaving too little for the Soviet Union and Great Britain.” Churchill produced what he called a “naughty document.” This was the draft of what became known as the “percentages agreement,” in American eyes the most notorious piece of chicanery in Churchill’s premiership. In Romania, Russia was to be recognised as having a 90 percent interest, while “the others” had 10 percent. In Greece, these figures were to be reversed. In Yugoslavia and Hungary, interests would be shared fifty-fifty. In Bulgaria, Russia would have a 75 percent interest, “the others” 25 percent. Churchill pushed this half sheet across the table to Stalin, who glanced at it, added a large blue tick, and passed the paper back across the table.
During the hours and days that followed, there was much general talk between the two men: about Greece and Yugoslavia, where Stalin agreed with Churchill that they should seek to prevent civil war between